IN MY HUMBLE, AND ALWAYS INCORRECT OPINION, It's the best amp in the world. There's no guarantee this particular example has been treated correctly, I'd want to check it out thoroughly in person. Otherwise you end up with an expensive, but exceptionally well performing, paperweight. I bought 2 on Ebay, and one is an excellent amp, while the other excels at holding papers in place, or doors open.
I've seen them for around $700, plus shipping, but the ads did not mention service history - at that price they could have needed tune-ups at least. I've seen recently restored examples, outfitted with the rare and elusive GE6550A tubes for closer to $2000. IIRC my functioning 400PS which needed tubes and some routine service cost ~$700 before the cost of service and tubes. My doorstop cost around $500 but came with 5 good GE6550A tubes, plus a full set of original preamp tubes, also good.
Get 3 of these Invalid Link Removed and you'll be able to play any venue smaller than New Mexico without PA support, while having a rig that breaks down and transports easily. It took me years to find the best cabs for this amp. Many seemingly beefy cabs weren't happy with the low end this thing puts out with a downtuned 5 string. Ended up with 1 of the Carvin and 2 Bag End D12E cabs, but those can be hard to find and expensive. I lucked into 2 cheap.
If the cab that comes with it is 4 Ohms, you can run it from one output jack. The amp will run safely with 1 4 Ohm load, but at under 200 watts. Do not run anyhting other than 4 Ohms off of any of the speaker jacks. 1,2, or 3 4 Ohm loads and you're fine.
Cons? It's heavy. It's dangerous to let the kid down the road have at it with his Radio Shack soldering iron because he thinks he can service it, although they don't need any more maintenance than any tube amp. When/if they do need service it should be by somebody who understands this model of amplifier, not just a backyard tube changer tech. Distortion isn't their thing. If you've read about that wonderful tube amp distortion, you won't find it here. Like the man said, headroom. It can do vintage or modern tones quite well, but not distortion or that sloppy, messy, Ampeg grogginess.
Read the time electronics pages, and check out the Yahoo 400PS group archives. It's not a terribly active group, but there's a lot of info there and Rich Koerner weighs in from time to time. He knows more about this amp than anyone alive.
). i wonder where people got the notion that tubes are distorted? tube amps aren't distorted, but they do sound great when they 'pushed' into it, unlike 99% of SS amps.
